Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa represent baseball’s steroid era perhaps as well as any players, and they all will play a role in determining how much that period tainted the game.
With all three appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time yesterday, the legacy of that era is set to be put to the test like never before this year, with some of the most controversial figures at the forefront again.
Those are just some of the names voters will have to make decisions on after the sport has spent much of the last decade trying to rid itself of performance-enhancing drugs.
Though all three have either been caught cheating or faced charges stemming from allegations, others will be affected, as well.
Even the suspicion of steroid use figures to have an impact on voters, which could affect former Met Mike Piazza, also a first-timer on the ballot. Piazza joins cash-strapped Curt Schilling, whose postseason heroics may help him gain entry.
Though the Hall of Fame vote has been in the spotlight before, few players have been more polarizing than Bonds and Clemens, widely considered the top players at their positions of their generation.
Bonds passed Hank Aaron as the all-time home run king, with 762 career homers and was voted MVP seven times, and Clemens won 354 games and a record seven Cy Young Awards — including one with theYankees — in his career. Still, both figure to be long shots at getting to Cooperstown.
Candidates need votes from at least 75 percent of the more than 600 eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Results will be announced Jan. 9 and history has not been kind to previous players who either have tested positive or been associated with performance enhancing drugs.
Another pair of the game’s most feared offensive players, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, have fallen well short of making it in recent years.
McGwire, who broke Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers in a season and finished with 583, never has gotten above 25 percent of the vote, and Palmeiro has never gotten half that, despite being one of just four players with 3000 hits and 500 home runs.
Those numbers, though, almost pale in comparison with Bonds and Clemens, as well as Sosa, who finished with 609 homers.
So the debate, which has been raging since the sport’s drug problem finally came to light, will gain some clarity in the coming weeks now that more players’ five-year waiting period is over.
According to the BBWAA, “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
In addition to the 37 new candidates, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines are among the former players who have remained on the ballot after former Reds shortstop Barry Larkin was the only player voted in by the BBWAA a year ago.